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THE HOROSCOPE.
Ere the next day was over, it was understood throughout the castle
that lord Herbert was constructing a horoscope--not that there were
many in the place who understood what a horoscope really was, or had
any knowledge of the modes of that astrology in whose results they
firmly believed; yet Kaltoff having been seen carrying several
mysterious-looking instruments to the top of the library tower, the
word was presently in everybody's mouth. Nor were the lovers of
marvel likely to be disappointed, for no sooner was the sun down
than there was lord Herbert, his head in an outlandish Persian hat,
visible over the parapet from the stone-court, while from some of
the higher windows in the grass-court might be seen through a
battlement his long flowing gown of a golden tint, wrought with
hieroglyphics in blue. Now he would stand for a while gazing up into
the heavens, now would be shifting and adjusting this or that
instrument, then peering along or through it, and then re-arranging
it, or kneeling and drawing lines, now circular, now straight, upon
a sheet of paper spread flat on the roof of the tower. There he
still was when the household retired to rest, and there, in the grey
dawn, his wife, waking up and peeping from her window, saw him
still, against the cold sky, pacing the roof with bent head and
thoughtful demeanour. In the morning he was gone, and no one but
lady Margaret saw him during the whole of the following day. Nor
indeed could any but herself or Caspar have found him, for the tale
Tom Fool told the rustics of a magically concealed armoury had been
suggested by a rumour current in the house, believed by all without
any proof, and yet not the less a fact, that lord Herbert had a
chamber of which none of the domestics knew door or window, or even
the locality. That recourse should have been had to spells and
incantations for its concealment, however, as was also commonly
accepted, would have seemed trouble unnecessary to any one who knew
the mechanical means his lordship had employed for the purpose. The
touch of a pin on a certain spot in one of the bookcases in the
library, admitted him to a wooden stair which, with the aid of
Caspar, he had constructed in an ancient disused chimney, and which
led down to a small chamber in the roof of a sort of porch built
over the stair from the stone-court to the stables. There was no
other access to it, and the place had never been used, nor had any
window but one which they had constructed in the roof so cunningly
as to attract no notice. All the household supposed the hidden
chamber, whose existence was unquestioned, to be in the great tower,
somewhere near the workshop.
In this place he kept his books of alchemy and magic, and some of
his stranger instruments. It would have been hard for himself even
to say what he did or did not believe of such things. In certain
moods, especially when under the influence of some fact he had just
discovered without being able to account for it, he was ready to
believe everything; in others, especially when he had just
succeeded, right or wrong, in explaining anything to his own
satisfaction, he doubted them all considerably. His imagination
leaned lovingly towards them; his intellect required proofs which he
had not yet found.
Hither then he had retired--to work out the sequences of the
horoscopes he had that night constructed. He was far less doubtful
of astrology than of magic. It would have been difficult, I suspect,
to find at that time a man who did not more or less believe in the
former, and the influence of his mechanical pursuits upon lord
Herbert's mind had not in any way interfered with his capacity for
such belief. In the present case, however, he trusted for success
rather to his knowledge of human nature than to his questioning of
the stars.
Before this, the second day, was over, it was everywhere whispered
that he was occupied in discovering the hidden way by which entrance
and exit had been found through the defences of the castle; and the
next day it was known by everybody that he had been successful--as
who could doubt he must, with such powers at his command?
For a time curiosity got the better of fear, and there was not a
soul in the place, except one bedridden old woman, who did not that
day accept lord Herbert's general invitation, and pass over the
Gothic bridge to see the opening from the opposite side of the moat.
To seal the conviction that the discovery had indeed been made,
permission was given to any one who chose to apply to it the test of
his own person, but of this only Shafto the groom availed himself.
It was enough, however: he disappeared, and while the group which
saw him enter the opening was yet anxiously waiting his return by
the way he had gone, having re-entered by the western gate he came
upon them from behind, to the no small consternation of those of
weaker nerves, and so settled the matter for ever.
As soon as curiosity was satisfied, lord Herbert gave orders which,
in the course of a few days, rendered the drain as impassable to
manor dog as the walls of the keep itself.
In the middle of the previous night, Marquis had returned, and
announced himself by scratching and whining for admittance at the
door of Dorothy's room. She let him in, but not until the morning
discovered that he had a handkerchief tied round his neck, and in it
a letter addressed to herself. Curious, perhaps something more than
curious, to open it, she yet carried it straight to lord Herbert.
'Canst not break the seal, Dorothy, that thou bringest it to me? I
will not read it first, lest thou repent,' said his lordship.
'Will you open it then, madam?' she said, turning to lady Margaret.
'What my lord will not, why should I?' rejoined her mistress.
Dorothy opened the letter without more ado, crimsoned, read it to
the end, and handed it again to lord Herbert.
'Pray read, my lord,' she said.
He took it, and read. It ran thus--
'Mistress Dorothy, I think, and yet I know not, but I think thou
wilt be pleased to learn that my Wound hath not proved mortal,
though it hath brought me low, yea, very nigh to Death's Door. Think
not I feared to enter. But it grieveth me to the Heart to ride
another than my own Mare to the Wars, and it will pleasure thee to
know that without my Lady I shall be but Half the Man I was. But do
thou the Like again when thou mayest, for thou but didst thy Duty
according to thy Lights; and according to what else should any one
do? Mistaken as thou art, I love thee as mine own Soul. As to the
Ring I left for thee, with a safe Messenger, concerning whom I say
Nothing, for thou wilt con her no Thanks for the doing of aught to
pleasure me, I restored it not because it was thine, for thy mother
gave it me, but because, if for Lack of my Mare I should fall in
some Battle of those that are to follow, then would the Ring pass to
a Hand whose Heart knew nought of her who gave it me. I am what thou
knowest not, yet thine old Play-fellow Richard.--When thou hearest
of me in the Wars, as perchance thou mayest, then curse me not, but
sigh an thou wilt, and say, he also would in his Blindness do the
Thing that lay at his Door. God be with thee, mistress Dorothy. Beat
not thy Dog for bringing thee this.
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